Sweetened bill lures new votes

Minnesota Rep. Jim Ramstad finally has a strong chance to win a career-long fight: equal treatment for mental illness in health care coverage. But victory won’t come cheap: It’ll be about $700 billion, to be precise.

That’s the cost of the bailout package Ramstad opposed on Monday. But he will have to reconsider that vote now that congressional leaders have glued the massive bill to his mental health parity legislation.

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Ramstad is not alone. Many House members who helped defeat the bailout plan are now taking a second look because of sweeteners poured on the greatly expanded, 450-page Senate version.

The Senate bill includes $3.3 billion in federal aid for rural schools, a two-year extension of the popular deduction for states that rely on sales tax and another one-year patch to protect millions of middle-income households from paying the dreaded alternative minimum tax. It also has alternative energy tax proposals and a major change to Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. coverage.

Party leaders in the House need a dozen vote switchers — probably more if they want to avoid another nail-biting roll call — so everyone is scrambling to find adequate cover for those members who risk their political careers by flipping.

But for every new vote, the plan may be losing support from others who backed the original.

One of the most wobbly coalitions is a bloc of fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats who are upset that the Senate failed to offset the cost of the tax incentives.

One advocate for that group is Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, who is upset with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for coupling the bailout proposal with other measures that will increase the deficit.

The Maryland Democrat maintains close ties with the Blue Dog Coalition and has fought repeated attempts to pass these tax extensions and the mental health parity bill without offsetting those costs.

“I’m not particularly pleased with that addition,” Hoyer said Wednesday morning on NBC’s “Today” show.

During that appearance, he suggested the move might provoke some initial backers of the rescue plan to oppose it during the next vote.

That makes House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s job that much harder as she tries to hold the line on the 141 Democrats who voted for the first version of the bailout bill.

Pelosi told other Democratic leaders in the House on Wednesday that Reid never asked her advice on including the popular tax extensions with the rescue package, according to sources familiar with the leaders’ conference call.

Instead, Reid informed Pelosi and Hoyer what he was doing, putting pressure on both leaders to pass a combined package. The speaker cautioned Reid that she might not have the votes to pass the revised bailout proposal and asked for more time to canvass her members, but Reid refused.

Instead, Reid seemed to have been talking more with House GOP leader John A. Boehner of Ohio, who told Reid he could deliver on the new package, according to Democratic sources.

“I would not have moved forward on this if I didn’t think the chances in the House were good,” Reid told reporters on Wednesday afternoon.

Reid pushed back at accusations that he was trying to “jam” the House, saying he was just trying to get the bailout passed any way he can.

“My job is not to get this passed in the House,” Reid added. “My job is to get this passed in the Senate. We don’t have a lot of time.”

Budget hawks in the Democratic Caucus were expected to convene a conference call Wednesday evening to discuss the decision, and party leaders were bracing for a few defections among the 26 who supported the economic rescue plan.

While Democrats struggle to hold the line, Republicans are intent on building a new coalition to make up for their party’s weak showing at the failed Monday House vote.